Google Ventureshttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/google-ventures
en-usFri, 09 Dec 2016 12:10:05 -0500Fri, 09 Dec 2016 12:10:05 -0500The latest news on Google Ventures from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-bill-maris-section-32-venture-fund-2016-12The founder of Google Ventures is launching a new venture fund (GOOG, GOOGL)http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-bill-maris-section-32-venture-fund-2016-12
Mon, 05 Dec 2016 10:55:34 -0500Avery Hartmans
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/584589dfba6eb606688b67c9-2400/undefined" alt="Bill Maris" data-mce-source="Getty / Noam Galai" /></p><p>After a brief hiatus, Bill Maris is back in the venture-capital world.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Google Ventures founder, who served as the firm's CEO <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-maris-leaves-gv-2016-8?r=UK&amp;IR=T" target="_blank">until August</a>, is raising a new $230 million fund, according to <a href="http://www.recode.net/2016/12/5/13842608/former-google-ventures-ceo-raising-new-230-million-fund-focus-health-care" target="_blank">Recode's Kara Swisher</a>. The fund will be called Section 32 and will focus on health care investments.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>Recode reports that Maris will run the new fund himself </span><span>without other partners and will remain in San Diego rather than move to Silicon Valley.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>Maris founded Google Ventures in 2009. It was later rebranded as GV <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-alphabet-report-card-2016-8">after the company restructured as Alphabet</a> in 2015.</p>
<p>Under Maris, GV invested in Uber, <span>ecommerce company Jet (which </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-is-buying-jetcom-2016-8">sold to Walmart for more than $3 billion</a> in August)<span>, and Nest, which </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-buying-nest-for-35-billion-2014-1">Google bought in 2014</a><span>. Maris reportedly left the firm to spend time with his family, passing the torch to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-google-ventures-gv-david-krane-ceo-2016-8" target="_blank">David Krane</a>, who previously served as managing partner at the fund.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>Maris' departure from GV was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/alphabet-executive-departures-2016-10" target="_blank">one of many for Alphabet</a> in the last several months. Nest's Tony Fadell, Google Fiber's Craig Barratt, Project Wing's Dave Vos, and Chris Urmson, one of the original members of Google's self-driving car project, have left the company in the last year.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/alphabet-executive-departures-2016-10" >Google's parent company keeps losing its top executives</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-bill-maris-section-32-venture-fund-2016-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-boeing-747-front-hump-2016-11">Here's why Boeing 747s have a giant hump in the front</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-mg-siegler-on-verbal-computing-2016-11Here's why a Google Ventures investor believes talking to computers all the time is the future of tech (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-mg-siegler-on-verbal-computing-2016-11
Sun, 13 Nov 2016 09:00:00 -0500Avery Hartmans
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5826235446e27a735a8b57d1-620/mg-siegler.jpeg" alt="mg siegler" data-mce-source="Google Ventures" /></p><p>Not only is talking to voice-powered devices not weird, it's the only way we'll be computing in the near future.&nbsp;</p>
<p>That's according to GV's M.G. Siegler. Siegler &mdash; a general partner at Alphabet's early-stage venture arm, GV (formerly Google Ventures) &mdash; who says the use of artificial intelligence-powered devices like Amazon Echo and Google Assistant are a sign of where things are headed in the tech industry.&nbsp;</p>
<p>While most of us might feel a bit strange and futuristic talking to a computer,&nbsp;especially one which learns over time and is almost definitely smarter than you,&nbsp;maybe we're all just too set in our ways or &mdash; gasp &mdash; old-fashioned.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>"I think it&rsquo;ll take a while for us, people of our general age group, and certainly older generations as well," Siegler told Business Insider. "But if you look at kids, if you&rsquo;ve ever seen any video of a kid with an Amazon Echo, it&rsquo;s like their favorite thing in the world, talking to Alexa."</span></p>
<p><span>Siegler compared voice-powered computing to the rise of using mobile devices like computers. What originally started with a mainframe server later&nbsp;became a desktop computer, which led to the laptop, and eventually the mobile phone.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span><img class="float_left" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/58262b71691e88bb798b5bf4-2000/google home-6.jpg" alt="google home" data-mce-source="Hollis Johnson/Business Insider" />"We&rsquo;ve been squeezed into this paradigm of computing that was a direct result of the technology at the time," Siegler said. "These are all just constraints and they aren&rsquo;t really a natural way."</span></p>
<p><span>"It&rsquo;s sort of weird to be typing and it&rsquo;s sort of weird to be poking at a screen. How do we communicate with one another? We talk to each other and we listen," he said.</span></p>
<p><span>While Siegler said talking to computers and using voice-powered devices is inevitable, investing in the technology is tricky.</span></p>
<p><span>"The key thing that we have think about on the investing side is that those types of things feel inevitable, but it&rsquo;s always a question of timing," he said. "Timing really matters when you&rsquo;re trying to make an investment because obviously, you have to hit a certain window where something like that will be feasible on a large scale to become a good business."</span></p>
<h2><span>It's not there yet &mdash; but it will be</span></h2>
<p><span>GV's parent company Alphabet is already betting&nbsp;heavily on the verbal computing space with its new hardware products. The company <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-home-announced-price-release-date-2016-10" target="_blank">unveiled its Google Home device</a> in October, the company's first hardware device to incorporate its new digital&nbsp;Assistant. Much like Amazon's Alexa, the Assistant responds to your voice and is powered by artificial intelligence.&nbsp;</span><span>The Assistant is also available on Google's new Pixel phone and Allo chat app.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5826375e691e8820038b651b-1440/screen shot 2016-03-10 at 3.06.42 pm.png" alt="amazon echo" data-mce-source="Amazon" />Assistant follows in the footsteps of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/siri-vs-google-assistant-cortana-alexa-2016-11" target="_blank">Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Microsoft's Cortana</a>, all of which are voice-powered personal assistants.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>But one critique with all of the voice assistants &mdash; and Google's in particular &mdash; is that activating them and speaking with them can be...creepy. </span></p>
<p><span>To activate the Assistant, you have to say "Okay Google," which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-assistant-ok-google-is-super-creepy-2016-10" target="_blank">Business Insider's Dave Smith argued</a>&nbsp;reminds users that you're speaking to and sharing information with a massive corporation that's storing your data.</span></p>
<p><span>Beyond the broader implications of using voice-powered devices, Siegler </span><span>admits that the technology itself isn't quite there yet &mdash; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-hires-reddit-users-specific-accents-improve-voice-recognition-2016-8" target="_blank">voice</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-buys-french-startup-moodstocks-2016-7" target="_blank">image recognition</a> is coming along, although&nbsp;it's not perfect by a long shot. Siegler himself</span><span>&nbsp;has created a "hack" using a Jawbone earpiece and his phone's accessibility settings to have&nbsp;everything read aloud to him, whether it's texts or news articles. </span></p>
<p>Still, the technology that's currently available is a sign of progress and&nbsp;Siegler believes it's time we start coming around to the idea that&nbsp;in the future, we might never need to touch our phones.</p>
<p><span><span>"Why is that weird?" he&nbsp;said. "It's weird because it hasn't been a normal thing for 50 years and it's not what we generally think of. But that's not to say that it won't be the normal thing in 10 years, in 20 years."</span></span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-home-vs-amazon-echo-which-to-buy-2016-11" >Should you buy Google Home or the Amazon Echo?</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-mg-siegler-on-verbal-computing-2016-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-home-virtual-assistant-hands-on-video-2016-10">We got our hands on the Home — Google’s answer to the Amazon Echo</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/alphabets-vc-unit-backs-irish-life-science-startup-gmi-in-40-million-round-2016-10Alphabet's VC unit has backed an Irish genomics startup (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/alphabets-vc-unit-backs-irish-life-science-startup-gmi-in-40-million-round-2016-10
Sat, 29 Oct 2016 05:00:00 -0400Sam Shead
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55a922dadd0895d1748b4635-2016/5050777576_a066a67811_o.jpg" alt="Google Ventures partner Tom Hulme" data-mce-source="Flickr/PICNIC Network" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/crossmediaweek/"></p><p>GV, the venture capital firm that sits under Google parent company Alphabet, made another European startup investment this week.</p>
<p>The investment, <a href="https://twitter.com/thulme/status/791243259540496389" target="_blank">announced on Wednesday</a>, was in a genetic research company called Genomics Medicine Ireland (GMI), which is based in Dublin and was led by Tom Hulme, a GV partner in London.</p>
<p>The round came in at $40 million (£33 million) and the company intends to use the funds to help it hire an additional 150 people and build a new research and development centre.</p>
<p>Other investors in the round included Venture Partners, Polaris Partners, and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.</p>
<p>Founded last year by a group of life science entrepreneurs, investors and researchers, GMI is creating a scientific platform to examine the human genome in order to better understand the role of genetics in disease and rare conditions. They hope the platform will help scientists to come up with disease prevention strategies and treatments.</p>
<p>The company said it expects to announce its first collaboration with an Irish hospital in the coming weeks, adding that it is actively engaged in talks with a number of clinical collaborators nationwide.</p>
<p><div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>
I'm very excited about our latest <a href="https://twitter.com/GVteam">@GVteam</a> investment in the EU (we seed invested last year but didn't announce):<a href="https://t.co/8jLbXGowpI">https://t.co/8jLbXGowpI</a> </p>— Tom Hulme (@thulme) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/791243259540496389">October 26, 2016</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p>Daniel Crowley, acting CEO of GMI, said in a statement: "We look forward to working closely with the Irish healthcare system to develop better diagnostics and new means to optimise health and patient outcomes. The size and characteristics of the Irish population can powerfully advance scientific discovery as researchers are able to pinpoint variations in DNA relevant to disease and useful for improving medicine."</p>
<p>GV has recently backed a number of healthcare businesses around the world, highlighting how it expects some of the companies operating in the space to grow considerably over the next few years.</p>
<h2>GV in Europe</h2>
<p>GV announced a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-10/google-s-venture-capital-arm-adds-100-million-european-fund" target="_blank">dedicated $125 million (£86 million) fund</a> for European technology startups in July 2014 only to <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12" target="_blank">fold it back into the global fund</a> after making less than 10 investments over a period that lasted less than two years. The overall Google Ventures fund now stands at $475 million (£332 million) globally.</p>
<p>GV had five partners in Europe when it announced "Google Ventures Europe" but today there are only two left: Hulme and Avid Larizadeh.</p>
<p>"The strategy hasn’t changed," Larizadeh <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-outlines-european-investment-strategy-2016-6" target="_blank">told Business Insider</a> earlier this year."What changed was we just pulled the money together. When we initially started, we were investing on the same strategy as the US was, but in Europe. So stage-agnostic, mostly starting with series A and then B, C, D. And looking across technology. So whether it’s containers, robotics, AI, consumer, enterprise, and life sciences as well. That hasn’t changed in any way shape or form. We merged."</p>
<p>Larizadeh added: "We went from $300 million (£205 million) [in the US] and $125 million (£85 million) [in Europe] to $425 million (£290 million) globally."</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/alphabets-vc-unit-backs-irish-life-science-startup-gmi-in-40-million-round-2016-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tiny-buttons-rivets-jeans-2016-11">What those tiny rivets on your jeans are for</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-like-when-google-ventures-invested-flatiron-health-2016-9What it's like when Alphabet's venture arm invests in your startup — and helps grow it to a $1.2 billion company (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/what-like-when-google-ventures-invested-flatiron-health-2016-9
Sun, 02 Oct 2016 10:00:00 -0400Avery Hartmans
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57eed98211c8e7253f8b4618-2400/100_09-flatironhealth-sup_3471.jpg" alt="Flatiron Health" data-mce-source="Saskia Uppenkamp" /></p><p>After a year of working at Google, Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg were getting restless.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The duo &mdash; which came to Google in 2010 after it acquired their company, Invite Media &mdash; was ready to start thinking about their next venture, doing research on the side and angel investing in other startups to see what worked and what didn't. They had never intended to stay at Google long, something they had made clear from the beginning.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>"It was no surprise we were going to leave, everyone knew that," Turner told Business Insider. "I think we told our boss three months after we got to Google that we were only going to be there until the two-year mark."</span></p>
<p><span>Before that two-year mark, Turner and Weinberg were approached by what at the time was called Google Ventures &mdash; now called simply GV. GV, which is Alphabet's early-stage venture arm, wanted to meet some of the young entrepreneurs who had sold their companies to Google and find out what they were doing next. By then, Turner and Weinberg had started to think about starting a healthcare company after Turner's cousin was diagnosed with leukemia.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>About a month later, the pair traveled to Boston, where they met with Krishna&nbsp;<span>Yeshwant, a practicing physician who also works as a general partner&nbsp;at GV. Turner said he pitched Yeshwant a few "very terrible" healthcare ideas, which spawned the beginning of what is now Flatiron Health: a software company that&nbsp;<span>organizes the world&rsquo;s oncology information</span>&nbsp;and makes it accessible for doctors, patients, and researchers.</span></span></p>
<h2><span><span><span>'The complexity was an advantage'</span></span></span></h2>
<p><span><span></span></span><span><span>After the first meeting, Yeshwant began introducing Turner and Weinberg to everyone within his circles in the medical community.&nbsp;</span></span></p>
<p><span>"It wasn&rsquo;t just like, &lsquo;Hey, here&rsquo;s an email intro,&rsquo;" Turner said. "He actually came to a lot of those meetings. We were still 24 and working at Google and had no healthcare background, so him being a physician added a lot of credibility to the room."</span></p>
<p><span><img class="float_left" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/57eec06d11c8e71b008b4a7b-800/krishna.jpg" alt="Krishna Yeshwant" data-mce-source="GV" />At the same time, Turner and Weinberg were traveling to cancer care centers around the country, shadowing doctors and finding out what it's really like to be both a patient and a physician in cancer care. Turner estimates that they traveled to more than 50 centers in cities like&nbsp;Greenville, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and&nbsp;Rutgers, New Jersey.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>"A lot of time when people start companies, especially in oncology or clinical medicine, they spend time in the big academic centers and they forget that 80% to 90% of the care of patients is delivered in community oncology centers," Yeshwant told Business Insider. "Those are often places that would be considered flyover country &mdash; they&rsquo;re not in the big cities. Nat and Zach went to those places and they realized the complexity.&nbsp;I think to them, to some degree, the complexity was an advantage."</span></p>
<p><span>Yeshwant says that the fact that neither founder had a background in healthcare was a&nbsp;selling point to him. Since he's a&nbsp;physician, a lot&nbsp;of the healthcare startups are sent in his direction, but most of the time, entrepreneurs&nbsp;get scared off by the complexity and the amount of capital it would take to start a company in that field.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span></span><span>Yeshwant ended up leading both Flatiron Health's Series A and Series B rounds &mdash; $8 million and $130 million respectively. The company remains GV's biggest investment ever, second only to Uber.&nbsp;</span></p>
<h2><span>'A&nbsp;profoundly exciting area'</span></h2>
<p><span>Yeshwant is confident that if Flatiron Health stays focused on oncology &mdash; an industry he says is "</span><span>going through an amazing renaissance right now" &mdash; the company could become massively successful.</span></p>
<p><span></span><span>"We&rsquo;re developing and understanding the biology behind cancer that&rsquo;s letting us really develop treatments that are working &mdash; and potentially cures down the line," Yeshwant said. "</span>If all Flatiron ever does is touch some part of oncology, it has the potential to be a tens of billions, or hundreds of billions-size company.&nbsp;Oncology alone is the size of the advertising industry, if not larger."</p>
<p><span>In January, the company raised a&nbsp;<span>$175 million Series C round,&nbsp;led by Roche Pharmaceuticals. Flatiron's most recent valuation is around $1.2<span>&nbsp;billion (up from a previous reported valuation of $983 million.)</span></span></span></p>
<p><span>But Turner seems focused on something much simpler than becoming a billion-dollar company at the moment:&nbsp;</span><span>"We just want science to move faster in cancer."</span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/roches-investment-in-tech-companies-2016-1" >A cancer startup just raised $175 million from a pharmaceutical giant, and it could be where the industry is headed</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-like-when-google-ventures-invested-flatiron-health-2016-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/places-on-google-maps-you-cant-see-2016-11">7 places you can’t find on Google Maps</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-convict-selling-drugs-cocaine-conbod-2016-9Meet the ex-con who owns a workout studio on the same block he used to run a million-dollar cocaine ringhttp://www.businessinsider.com/ex-convict-selling-drugs-cocaine-conbod-2016-9
Thu, 22 Sep 2016 14:18:00 -0400Arielle Berger
<div><div>
<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script><div class="g-ytsubscribe" data-channel="BusinessInsider" data-layout="full" data-count="default"></div>
</div></div>
<p class="embed-spacer"></p>
<p>After completing his sentence and frustrated by a discouraging job search as an applicant with a criminal record, Coss Marte brought his prison workout to the masses. His studio, <a href="http://conbody.com/">ConBody</a>, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, is just down the block from where he started selling drugs when he was younger.</p>
<p><em>Produced by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/arielle-berger">Arielle Berger</a>. Additional camera by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/emmanuel-ocbazghi">Emmanuel Ocbazghi</a>. Special thanks to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/graham-flanagan">Graham Flanagan</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Follow BI Video: </strong><a href="https://twitter.com/BI_Video" target="_blank">On Twitter</a> </p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-convict-selling-drugs-cocaine-conbod-2016-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-google-ventures-gv-david-krane-ceo-2016-8Meet David Krane, the new head of Google's $2.4 billion venture-capital businesshttp://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-google-ventures-gv-david-krane-ceo-2016-8
Thu, 11 Aug 2016 07:00:00 -0400Sam Shead
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57ac3c5fdd0895d22f8b47f0-800/david-krane.jpg" alt="David Krane Google Ventures" data-mce-source="Google Ventures" /></p><p>Bill Maris, the founder and CEO of GV (formerly Google Ventures), <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/bill-maris-leaves-gv-2016-8" target="_blank">has left the company</a>. His replacement is Google veteran David Krane.</p>
<p>But who is Krane, and what does his track record look like?</p>
<p>Well, he was previously a managing partner at the $2.4 billion (&pound;1.85 billion) fund, which now sits under Google's parent company, Alphabet, and he has invested in the likes of Uber, Nest, and Blue Bottle Coffee, according to the <a href="https://www.gv.com/team/david-krane/" target="_blank">GV website</a>.</p>
<p>He first joined Google 16 years ago as director of global communications and public affairs, where he oversaw the company&rsquo;s strategic communications programs on a worldwide level.</p>
<p>Prior to Google, the husband and father of three children worked for Apple, Qualcomm, Four11 (now Yahoo Mail), and two computer security software developers.</p>
<p>The GV website says Krane has "worked as a member of the senior leadership team to grow Google from a small startup to a multibillion-dollar global enterprise."</p>
<p>Despite a long career in tech, Krane actually trained as a journalist, picking up a journalism degree from Indiana University Bloomington.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-google-ventures-gv-david-krane-ceo-2016-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/charge-iphone-faster-2016-11">How to supercharge your iPhone in 5 minutes</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/lost-my-name-has-laid-off-over-10-of-its-workforce-2016-7A Google-backed startup that makes personalised children's books has laid off a bunch of staffhttp://www.businessinsider.com/lost-my-name-has-laid-off-over-10-of-its-workforce-2016-7
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 11:32:41 -0400Sam Shead
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/558bc6f5dd0895a60d8b45ca-1063/lost-my-name.png" alt="Lost My Name" data-mce-source="YouTube/lostmy.name" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb9-hU8Yk-Y" /></p><p>London publishing startup Lost My Name has laid off over 10% of its workforce less than two months after raising a <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/lost-my-name-raises-4-million-2016-6" target="_blank">&euro;4 million (&pound;3.3 million) funding round</a>.</p>
<p>The company &mdash; founded in 2012 by Asi Sharabi and Tal Oron &mdash; creates customised books based around a child's name. The books are customised and ordered online, then sent out to printing partners around the world.</p>
<p>A Business Insider source with knowledge of the company said that around 10 of Lost My Name's 70-strong workforce had been laid off.</p>
<p>Sharabi confirmed via email that he has let go of nine Lost My Name employees.</p>
<p>He provided us with the following statement:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"We wanted to go back to a more of a lean startup mode and to do more with less. The people we let go came from all areas of the business. We looked at our priorities, we looked at what's working (e.g content marketing) and what's not (e.g display marketing) we revised our hiring pipeline, we looked at the people we know will be leaving us in the next few months, we asked ourselves who is ready and capable to take us to the next phase of growth, who isn't, and we amended our plan accordingly. Most of new hiring are product people with couple of specialists marketing peeps."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lost My Name has raised a total of $13 million (&pound;9 million) from investors. The last funding round of &euro;4 million was described as an extension to the <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-invests-in-personalised-childrens-book-company-lost-my-name-2015-6" target="_blank">$9 million (&pound;6 million) series A round</a> that Lost My Name raised last June from Google Ventures, Greycroft, and Allen &amp; Co.</p>
<p>Google Ventures partner Avid Larizadeh sits on the Lost My Name board, as does Greycroft partner Dana Settle.</p>
<p>Lost My Name's first product entitled "The Little Boy/Girl Who Lost His/Her Name" was the best selling picture book of 2015 in Spain, Italy, and Australia and the top grossing one in the UK and the US. Their second book, "The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home," is currently only available in the UK and the US but it is due to launch across other European countries later in the year.</p>
<p>Lost My Name <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/lost-my-name-sells-a-million-books-2015-12" target="_blank">announced in December</a> that it had sold over 1 million books. That number now stands at over 1.5 million.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lost-my-name-has-laid-off-over-10-of-its-workforce-2016-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/places-on-google-maps-you-cant-see-2016-11">7 places you can’t find on Google Maps</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-investor-it-would-break-my-heart-if-powa-corrupted-the-fintech-marketplace-2016-6Google Ventures investor: 'It would break my heart if Powa corrupted fintech'http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-investor-it-would-break-my-heart-if-powa-corrupted-the-fintech-marketplace-2016-6
Sat, 02 Jul 2016 02:30:00 -0400Sam Shead
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55a922dadd0895d1748b4635-2016/5050777576_a066a67811_o.jpg" alt="Google Ventures partner Tom Hulme" data-mce-source="Flickr/PICNIC Network" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/crossmediaweek/" /></p><p>Fintech (financial technology) has arguably become the poster child for the UK technology sector over the last couple of years but <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/inside-the-crash-of-londons-payment-unicorn-powa-technologies-2016-4" target="_blank">the spectacular collapse of Powa Technologies</a> did nothing for the sector's reputation.</p>
<p>When asked whether Powa cast a shadow on the UK's thriving fintech industry, Tom Hulme, a partner at Google Ventures in London, said: "It would break my heart if Powa Technologies corrupted the fintech marketplace."</p>
<p>Powa raised at least $175 million (&pound;122 million) but it <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/powa-technologies-250000-in-the-bank-164-million-debt-2016-2" target="_blank">had only $250,000 (&pound;175,200) in the bank</a> at the start of February and debts of $16.4 million (&pound;11.5 million). Here's <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-did-powa-technologies-spend-its-money-on-2016-3" target="_blank">how it spent</a> all of its investor's money.</p>
<p>Hulme was quick to add that Powa was not the type of company that Google Ventures would look at. He did, however, admit that he's keen to invest some of Google's millions into a fintech company at some point, adding that Google Ventures has looked at most of the peer-to-peer lenders and most of the crowdfunding platforms.</p>
<p>Fintech companies like TransferWise and Funding Circle has been valued at over $1 billion after raising hundreds of millions of dollars between them.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/557f0b56dd0895c14f8b459d-1392/powa-ceo-dan-wagner.jpg" alt="powa ceo dan wagner" data-mce-source="TechTrek/Wikimedia Commons (CC)" data-mce-caption="Powa CEO Dan Wagner." data-link="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dan_Wagner_-_UK_Tech_Entrepreneur.jpg" />"We will [invest in fintech]," said Hulme during a lunch with Business Insider, The BBC and The Financial Times. "I think there&rsquo;s an argument that prices are already coming off a bit, particularly at later stage, so I&rsquo;d be very bullish about it. Particularly London."</p>
<p>Avid Larizadeh Duggan, the only other Google Ventures partner in Europe, added: "There&rsquo;s so much still to happen [in fintech] from partnerships to small acquisitions. There&rsquo;s still a lot of time for Tom to invest."</p>
<p>Hulme said he is also on the hunt for artificial intelligence companies that are developing general self-learning algorithms that can be applied to a wide range of scenarios in the same way that Google DeepMind's can.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-investor-it-would-break-my-heart-if-powa-corrupted-the-fintech-marketplace-2016-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/places-on-google-maps-you-cant-see-2016-11">7 places you can’t find on Google Maps</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/david-krane-on-googles-uber-investment-2016-6The Googler who bet $250 million on Uber says it's like 'looking in the mirror' (GOOG, GOOGL)http://www.businessinsider.com/david-krane-on-googles-uber-investment-2016-6
Sun, 26 Jun 2016 13:15:00 -0400Biz Carson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/576c6eb891058428008cb4aa-1598/david-krane.jpg" alt="David Krane GV" data-mce-source="GV" /></p><p>David Krane describes his investment in Uber as the "relentless pursuit of a guy that's hard to pin down."</p>
<p>In the early days of Uber, back when it was still a black car service, Krane realized that he was using the company with great loyalty and great frequency &mdash; traits he looks for when making new investments.</p>
<p>So, he set out to track down Travis Kalanick, Uber's CEO and cofounder, and spent two years working on building a relationship with him.</p>
<p>"<span>Thankfully, the company's capital needs opened up long before I lost my patience and ran out of enthusiasm for chasing him, so it worked out beautifully," Krane, a managing partner at GV &mdash; formerly known as Google Ventures &mdash; told Business Insider.</span></p>
<p><span>Except Kalanick wanted something very unusual at the time: one investor to fund&nbsp;the entire round.</span></p>
<p><span>"And he wasn't looking for $10 million, he was looking for way more than that," Krane said.</span></p>
<p>The amount Kalanick wanted was around&nbsp;$250 million, and Krane had to convince his partners at GV that Uber was worth the price and the risk to the fund.</p>
<p>"By simply running that analysis about sticking a quarter of a billion into one company, it is totally unconventional. It's such a concentrated piece of exposure," Krane said.</p>
<p>But having worked for Google since 2000, Krane preaches&nbsp;that you can't resign yourself to accepting what's known and old. That company is all about moonshots and experiments. And when Krane looked at Uber's numbers,&nbsp;he found himself looking at a company that was on the same path as the early days of Google.</p>
<p>In his seven years of venture-capital investing, he says that he's never seen any other company with growth charts like it.</p>
<p>"Uber and Google share so much in common from that perspective, it's just amazing. It was like looking in a mirror," Krane said. "We knew how the story of Google played out, and it gave us further confidence that the story of Uber would be the same."</p>
<p>GV went on to lead the 2013 Series C round for Uber, meeting that the price that Kalanick wanted, although two other investors also participated to&nbsp;bring the round's total funding to $361 million. Since then, Krane's enthusiasm for the company is undeniable and has only grown.</p>
<p>Even GV's big risk&nbsp;now pales to Uber's most recent $3.5 billion round from Saudi Arabia's sovereign-wealth fund.</p>
<p>Krane said:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The company hasn't been without tension. It's had extreme amounts of scrutiny, frankly more scrutiny than I think a company of its age should have or even deserve to have. Has it facilitated some of that attention? Absolutely. Is it deserving of all the scrutiny it gets? Absolutely not. This company is growing like no other."</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-stops-showing-surge-pricing-rates-2016-6" >Uber will stop showing the surge price that it charges for rides</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-krane-on-googles-uber-investment-2016-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/highest-median-experience-salary-companies-job-satisfaction-google-facebook-apple-2016-5">These are the best, highest-paying companies in America</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/david-krane-on-googles-uber-investment-2016-6To the early Google employee who invested $250 million in Uber, seeing Uber's growth is like 'looking in a mirror' (GOOG, GOOGL)http://www.businessinsider.com/david-krane-on-googles-uber-investment-2016-6
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 13:46:16 -0400Biz Carson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/576c6eb891058428008cb4aa-1598/david-krane.jpg" alt="David Krane GV" data-mce-source="GV" /></p><p>David Krane describes his investment in Uber as the "relentless pursuit of a guy that's hard to pin down."</p>
<p>In the early days of Uber, back when it was still a black car service, Krane realized that he was using the company with great loyalty and great frequency &mdash; traits he looks for when making new investments.</p>
<p>So, he set out to track down Travis Kalanick, Uber's CEO and cofounder, and spent two years working on building a relationship with him.</p>
<p>"<span>Thankfully, the company's capital needs opened up long before I lost my patience and ran out of enthusiasm for chasing him, so it worked out beautifully," Krane, a managing partner at GV &mdash; formerly known as Google Ventures &mdash; told Business Insider.</span></p>
<p><span>Except Kalanick wanted something very unusual at the time: one investor to fund&nbsp;the entire round.</span></p>
<p><span>"And he wasn't looking for $10 million, he was looking for way more than that," Krane said.</span></p>
<p>The amount Kalanick wanted was around&nbsp;$250 million, and Krane had to convince his partners at GV that Uber was worth the price and the risk to the fund.</p>
<p>"By simply running that analysis about sticking a quarter of a billion into one company, it is totally unconventional. It's such a concentrated piece of exposure," Krane said.</p>
<p>But having worked for Google since 2000, Krane preaches&nbsp;that you can't resign yourself to accepting what's known and old. That company is all about moonshots and experiments. And when Krane looked at Uber's numbers,&nbsp;he found himself looking at a company that was on the same path as the early days of Google.</p>
<p>In his seven years of venture-capital investing, he says that he's never seen any other company with growth charts like it.</p>
<p>"Uber and Google share so much in common from that perspective, it's just amazing. It was like looking in a mirror," Krane said. "We knew how the story of Google played out, and it gave us further confidence that the story of Uber would be the same."</p>
<p>GV went on to lead the 2013 Series C round for Uber, meeting that the price that Kalanick wanted, although two other investors also participated to&nbsp;bring the round's total funding to $361 million. Since then, Krane's enthusiasm for the company is undeniable and has only grown.</p>
<p>Even GV's big risk&nbsp;now pales to Uber's most recent $3.5 billion round from Saudi Arabia's sovereign-wealth fund.</p>
<p>Krane said:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The company hasn't been without tension. It's had extreme amounts of scrutiny, frankly more scrutiny than I think a company of its age should have or even deserve to have. Has it facilitated some of that attention? Absolutely. Is it deserving of all the scrutiny it gets? Absolutely not. This company is growing like no other."</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-stops-showing-surge-pricing-rates-2016-6" >Uber will stop showing the surge price that it charges for rides</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-krane-on-googles-uber-investment-2016-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/highest-median-experience-salary-companies-job-satisfaction-google-facebook-apple-2016-5">These are the best, highest-paying companies in America</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-outlines-european-investment-strategy-2016-6Google Ventures is on the hunt for the next DeepMind in Europe (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-outlines-european-investment-strategy-2016-6
Fri, 24 Jun 2016 03:30:00 -0400Sam Shead
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5665776fdd089529048b4694-2078/15395375159_5c93cf29f4_o.jpg" alt="Google Ventures team in Europe" data-mce-source="Flickr/TechCrunch" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/" /></p><p>Google Ventures, the venture capital unit of Google, which has invested hundreds of millions into the likes of Uber, Slack and Medium, wants to make more investments in deeply technical European startups that are developing completely new technologies.</p>
<p>The search giant's investment arm announced a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-10/google-s-venture-capital-arm-adds-100-million-european-fund" target="_blank">dedicated $125 million (&pound;86 million) fund</a> for European technology startups in July 2014 only to <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12" target="_blank">fold it back into the global fund</a> after making less than 10 investments over a period that lasted less than two years. The overall Google Ventures fund now stands at $475 million (&pound;332 million) globally.</p>
<p>Google Ventures had five partners in Europe when it announced Google Ventures Europe but today there are only two left: Tom Hulme and Avid Larizadeh.</p>
<p>Business Insider met Hulme and Larizadeh at a lunch in London with The Financial Times, and the BBC. During the lunch at Dean Street Townhouse, the duo were asked about what happened to the dedicated Google Ventures Europe fund; what their future investment strategy looks like, and whether they're really using artificial intelligence&nbsp;to identify the next companies to invest in.</p>
<h2>Doubling down on DeepMinds</h2>
<p>Fairly early on in the conversation, Hulme said he's keeping an eye out for companies like DeepMind &mdash; an AI research lab in London's King's Cross neighbourhood that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/27/google-acquires-uk-artificial-intelligence-startup-deepmind" target="_blank">Google bought for a reported &pound;400 million</a> in January 2014. "We would absolutely happily invest in the next DeepMind," he said. "Happily."</p>
<p>DeepMind is creating self-learning algorithms that can learn from raw experience or data. These algorithms are "general" in that they can perform well across a wide variety of tasks straight out of the box. The company is quite unlike the majority of the startups that Google Ventures has invested in across Europe in that it's more research-focused and less consumer-facing.</p>
<p>Conversely, neither Hulme nor Larizadeh have been able to find an AI company in Europe that's worthy of Google Ventures' millions.</p>
<p>In order to build a "really interesting general artificial intelligence project, you need some of the best PhDs on the planet," according to Hulme. "There will be people who find an elegant way to build a business while growing their team but I&rsquo;ve not found it yet. DeepMind were really the example but Google bought them. I would hope that were we around when DeepMind was&nbsp;going we would have looked at them."</p>
<p><img src="https://static.uk.businessinsider.com/image/56deb111dd0895d3708b4567-1117/lee sedol &amp; demis hassabis.jpg" alt="Lee Sedol &amp; Demis Hassabis" data-mce-source="Google DeepMind" /></p>
<p>Hulme said he is interested in a specific type of AI known as AGI, or artificial general intelligence. AGI&mdash; the area DeepMind operates in &mdash; is an emerging field focused on the building of "thinking machines." These machines can be thought of as general-purpose systems with intelligence comparable to that of the human mind. While this was the original goal of artificial intelligence (AI), the mainstream of AI research has turned towards more niche applications and is often referred to as applied AI.</p>
<p>"Applied [AI] is injected in some way into most businesses now," said Hulme. "Two years ago at accelerator demo, every pitch deck said big data in it. This year every pitch deck says artificial intelligence."</p>
<p>The fact that Google already has DeepMind isn't an issue for Google Ventures, according to Larizadeh. "We don&rsquo;t stop because Google is doing something unless we truly think that Google has a massive advantage," she said.</p>
<h2>Previous investments</h2>
<p>Google Ventures has made eight investments in Europe. The investments &mdash; ranging from &pound;200,000 up to tens of millions of pounds, but averaging out at around &pound;8 million &mdash; include:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Kobalt</strong>: Offers artists, songwriters, and publishers an alternative to the traditional music business model.</li>
<li><strong>Lost My Name</strong>: Personalised children&rsquo;s books.</li>
<li><strong>Oxford Sciences Innovation</strong>: Dedicated &pound;300 million to boost development of science and technology businesses in Oxford&rsquo;s math, life sciences and medical science divisions.</li>
<li><strong>Resolution Games</strong>: VR gaming studio based in Stockholm.</li>
<li><strong>Secret Escapes</strong>: UK-based members-only luxury travel site.</li>
<li><strong>Yieldify</strong>: Predictive marketing technology.</li>
<li><strong>Cambridge Epigenetix</strong>: Biosciences company that aims to be the leading provider of high quality, easy to use epigenetic tools.</li>
<li><strong>Weaveworks</strong>: Virtual private networks (containers). Enable customers to network, visualize and manage microservices and cloud native applications on Docker containers. GV&rsquo;s newest portfolio company in the European region.&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
<p>Hulme spoke proudly of the eight investments Google Ventures has made in Europe but says&nbsp;that Google Ventures has the resources to go after more technical startups that are developing revolutionary technologies, like quantum computing, general AI, and futuristic travel concepts like Elon Musk's Hyperloop.</p>
<p>"Sometimes it&rsquo;s easy just to do the stuff that you know," he said. "But we as a firm should be doing some of that stuff."</p>
<h2>Forrays into fintech</h2>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55a922dadd0895d1748b4635-2016/5050777576_a066a67811_o.jpg" alt="Google Ventures partner Tom Hulme" data-mce-source="Flickr/PICNIC Network" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/crossmediaweek/" />Hulme said he's also interested in fintech, which is an area he focused on during his time as an angel investor.</p>
<p>"As an angel, I did 22 investments and probably about eight of those were in fintech," said Hulme. "So when I started [at Google Ventures Europe] I was convinced that half of what I do would be in fintech in London."</p>
<p>Like AI, Google Ventures is yet to back any fintech companies in Europe. Hulme puts this down to the fact the valuations are too high. "We looked at a lot of businesses and our concern collectively was around valuation," he said, adding that Google Ventures assessed most of the peer-to-peer payments startups, and most of the crowdfunding startups .</p>
<p>"I would still be bullish about fintech in London because of the talent, the proximity, the number of potential acquirers," said Hulme. "If you look at media companies, there&rsquo;s probably three or four companies that could buy you for a $1 billion in London. In fintech there&rsquo;s probably 20. That&rsquo;s going to play out in the market over time. We haven&rsquo;t even seen that effect yet."</p>
<p>Larizadeh, who said she recently had dinner with the CEO of Barclays and the chairman of Aviva, added: "There&rsquo;s so much still to happen. From partnerships and small acquisitions. There&rsquo;s still a lot of time for Tom to invest in fintech."</p>
<p>Hulme went on to say that Google Ventures will make a fintech investment at some point, adding that he thinks valuations are already starting to fall, particularly at the later stage.</p>
<h2>GV's rocky road in Europe</h2>
<p>Last December, the Google Ventures Europe fund &mdash; initially overseen by a team of five investors &mdash; was <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12" target="_blank">folded into the main US Google Ventures fund</a>, with numerous reports suggesting that tensions had developed between Google Ventures investors in the US and Google Ventures investors in the UK over a lack of autonomy.</p>
<p>"The strategy hasn&rsquo;t changed," said Larizadeh early on in the lunch, trying to dispel what's been reported by the media about how Google's European investors struggled to get sign off on deals from Bill Maris, the California-based Google Ventures boss.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56c59d39dd08953b298b466d-2243/7-avid-larizadeh.jpg" alt="Avid Larizadeh Google Ventures" data-mce-source="Flickr/TechCrunch" data-mce-caption="Avid Larizadeh of Google Ventures." data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/" />"What changed was we just pulled the money together. When we initially started, we were investing on the same strategy as the US was, but in Europe. So stage-agnostic, mostly starting with series A and then B, C, D. And looking across technology. So whether it&rsquo;s containers, robotics, AI, consumer, enterprise, and life sciences as well. That hasn&rsquo;t changed in any way shape or form. We merged."</p>
<p>Larizadeh added: "We went from $300 million (&pound;205 million) [in the US] and $125 million (&pound;85 million) [in Europe] to $425 million (&pound;290 million) globally."</p>
<p>The merge occurred for a number of reasons, according to Larizadeh and Hulme.</p>
<p>It "didn't make sense" to pay for two sets of lawyers and two sets of "finance costs," said Larizadeh. In addition, all of the resources that Google Ventures can offer to portfolio companies in terms of PR, marketing, design, engineering, product are based out of the US. The meant European companies only get access to them three or four times a year. "The incentives [to use those resources] lay in the US fund not the European fund," she said. "It makes sense to have a unified fund for everybody to be incentivised in the same way."</p>
<p>Interestingly, investors working at Google Ventures in the US were co-investing in European startups alongside Google Ventures European investors. "I think as we sort of think about the structure of the fund, that was the biggest driver," said Hulme. "It&rsquo;s like we now understand them and like the US investments; they understand us, and like the European investments, so wrap the two together."</p>
<p>Venture capitalist Mark Tluszcz, cofounder and CEO of Mangrove Capital Partners, said the significance of the folding of Google Ventures Europe into the Google Ventures global fund was overhyped.</p>
<p>"They just had an operating model and it wasn&rsquo;t working for them so they changed it. I think Google is &mdash; like most American companies &mdash; very focused on its home market."</p>
<p>He added that five partners for the Google Ventures Europe fund may have been a bit excessive.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/576ce196dd08951a4e8b4691-1440/screen shot 2015-06-25 at 09.42.58.png" alt="Lost My Name" data-mce-source="YouTube/lostmy.name" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb9-hU8Yk-Y" /></p>
<h2>How Google Ventures finds companies to invest in</h2>
<p>From looking at random emails to attending startup demo days, there are a range of different methods that investors use to find companies to invest in.</p>
<p>Reports suggested that Google Ventures had created <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-uses-an-algorithm-to-help-it-make-investments-2015-7" target="_blank">a robotic algorithm</a> to find the most promising companies to back.</p>
<p>When asked about these reports, Hulme said: "Look, we have 12 world-class machine learning and engineering guys who spend a lot of time helping the portfolio and when they&rsquo;re not helping the portfolio companies they will look at the way the market is shifting and help us with a point of view.</p>
<p>"So they will have a point of view on stuff like whether late stage is more interesting than early stage but fundamentally it&rsquo;s a human business. We&rsquo;re making the final decisions."</p>
<p>Larizadeh added: "Do we use data to inform our decisions, like in any other business? Yes we do. Do we have a little robot? No not yet."</p>
<p>Fortunately for Google Ventures, it has access to more data than any venture capital company on the planet. It knows exactly what people are searching for and how popular certain apps and websites are before it invests in them.</p>
<p>Tluszcz says that venture capital does rely on data, but there's also something else needed as well.&nbsp;"It&rsquo;s also a lot about the feeling you have as individuals. I think they go past that. I think they just go f*** it, I just care about the data, data, data, data, data.</p>
<p>"At the end of the day, the gut feeling doesn&rsquo;t exist any more at Google. What exists is show me the data, show me the traffic that these guys are having. That&rsquo;s my view of them. Having said, no matter how, if I could get them in I would."</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-outlines-european-investment-strategy-2016-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hidden-iphone-settings-and-features-2016-11">3 hidden iPhone features only power users know about</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-yieldify-lawsuit-bounce-exchange-alleged-patent-infringement-tyrant-bully-diversion-2016-5'TYRANT': A Google-backed UK startup's legal battle with a US rival over alleged code theft is getting uglyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/google-yieldify-lawsuit-bounce-exchange-alleged-patent-infringement-tyrant-bully-diversion-2016-5
Fri, 06 May 2016 10:55:51 -0400Rob Price
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/558bb503dd08952f0a8b45d2-3178-2384/yieldify-founder-jay-left-and-meelan-radia.jpg" alt="Yieldify founder Jay, left, and Meelan Radia." data-mce-source="Yieldify" data-mce-caption="Yieldify founder Jay, left, and Meelan Radia."></p><p>Google-backed UK startup Yieldify is embroiled in a legal battle with US rival Bounce Exchange, which accuses it of stealing Bounce's code and infringing its patents.</p>
<p>The increasingly vicious case has now taken an unusual new twist — with Yieldify going on the offensive and accusing Bounce Exchange of patent infringement, using a patent it recently purchased from a company once labelled <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/inside-intellectual-ventures-the-most-hated-company-in-tech/">"the most hated company in tech"</a> and accused of being a notorious patent troll.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Read the complete court filing below.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>Founded in 2012, Yieldify builds e-commerce software that helps online retailers convince people to buy products online by tracking customer behaviour and providing prompts where necessary. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-europe-and-softbank-invest-115-million-in-yieldify-2015-6">In June 2015, it received $11.5 million (£8 million) in venture capital investment</a>, with the round led by Google venture capital arm Google Ventures (now called GV) and Softbank.</p>
<p>Yieldify CEO Jay Radia said the company does not comment on ongoing legal cases, but slammed Bounce Exchange as a "tyrant" and asserted that Yieldify "will not get bullied by any organisation that brings forward frivolous and unfair claims and misuse legal systems for their advantage."</p>
<p>Bounce Exchange CEO Ryan Urban attacked the new case as "a diversionary tactic [from Yieldify] when faced with a losing lawsuit."</p>
<h2>Yieldify is battling lawsuits in New York and Texas ...</h2>
<p>In 2015, New York-based competitor Bounce Exchange filed a suit against Yieldify in a New York federal court, accusing it of copying its code and infringing its patents, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yieldify-accused-of-copying-code-from-bounce-exchange-2016-3">in a case that first came to light earlier this year in a report from The Financial Times</a>.</p>
<p>Bounce then followed this up with a second case — <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yieldify-bounce-exchange-lawsuit-texas-alleged-patent-infringement-code-theft-customers-new-york-2016-4">this one filed in a Texas court in April 2016</a> — repeating these allegations, also accusing Yieldify of patent infringement, and adding some of Yieldify's customers as defendants. The customers (alongside Yieldify) are accused of "actively inducing others to infringe and/or contributing to the infringement [of Bounce Exchange's patents]."</p>
<p>Yieldify has denied all of these allegations. VP of marketing Shawn Cabral previously told Business Insider that the company "cannot comment on pending lawsuits, but [would] like to reiterate that our company has done nothing unlawful or in any way improper."</p>
<h2>... And has now launched one of its own.</h2>
<p>The London startup is now taking the offensive to Bounce Exchange. It is suing its rival in a third lawsuit, this one also in a New York federal court, accusing it of infringing on one of its patents.</p>
<p>The patent wasn't originally Yieldify's, though. Yieldify has purchased the patent from Intellectual Ventures in order to open up a new front in its battle with Bounce Exchange. It was first submitted for approval to the US Patent and Trademark Office back in 2005 by Intellectual Ventures (IV), <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/inside-intellectual-ventures-the-most-hated-company-in-tech/">an organisation that CNET once described as</a> "the most hated company in tech."</p>
<p>IV holds tens of thousands of patents and has been accused of being a "patent troll" — a company that squats on patents and sues anyone who inadvertently infringes upon them. The company disputes this characterisation.</p>
<p>The patent, No. 8,806,327, is for "a system and method for generating popup content in response to user's actions within an enabled web page" — similar to Yieldify and Bounce Exchange's core products.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/572cb0aadd0895c37b8b49b9-1400-1006/screen%20shot%202016-05-06%20at%2012.19.29.png" alt="yieldify bounce exchange patent lawsuit troll" data-mce-source="BI" data-mce-caption="Court filings submitted by Yieldify showing what it alleges is Bounce Exchange's infringement of a patent it recently purchased."></p>
<p>"Bounce has infringed and continues to infringe the ’327 Patent by making, selling, offering for sale, importing and/or using software and services in an infringing manner," Yieldify's court filings allege. "Yieldify has suffered irreparable harm as a result of Bounce’s infringement of the ’327 Patent and will continue to suffer irreparable harm unless Bounce is enjoined from infringing the ’327 Patent."</p>
<p>Yieldify declined to say how much it paid for the patent, or when exactly it acquired it.</p>
<p>Yieldify is seeking unspecified damages and legal fees, and for the New York court to rule that it is not infringing on Bounce Exchange's patents.</p>
<h2>The rhetoric is getting pretty heated</h2>
<p>Both Yieldify and Bounce Exchange provided with strongly worded statements when approached for comment about the new case — with Yieldify accusing Bounce of being a "tyrant organisation."</p>
<p>"Yieldify policy is not to comment on any current litigation matters," CEO Jay Radia said. "However, it is important to say that Yieldify will not get bullied by any organisation that brings forward frivolous and unfair claims and misuse legal systems for their advantage. Bounce Exchange has a long history of suing start-up innovators and customers for their advantage, instead of competing on product, service and price.</p>
<p class="p2">He added: "We have a responsibility to the industry at large to stand up to such tyrant organisations who bully successful start-ups to gain unfair advantages. Yieldify believes in healthy competition and will take necessary steps to defend its honour against such organisations."</p>
<p class="p2">Bounce Exchange CEO Ryan Urban declined to comment on the specifics of the case, but labelled it a "diversionary tactic [from Yieldify] when faced with a losing lawsuit." He said:</p>
<p class="p1" style="padding-left: 30px;">Because the case is pending I can't comment other than to say that at Bounce Exchange we respect intellectual property rights. We believe these rights are vital to the protection of software developers and all those who foster innovation in the hopes of furthering technology to the benefit of the marketplace. It is disappointing to see intellectual property rights being exploited as a diversionary tactic when faced with a losing lawsuit instead of being used to encourage innovation.</p>
<h2>The story so far</h2>
<p>The entire battle is fairly ugly — with accusations of theft of code and marketing materials, and with customers getting dragged into it.</p>
<p>The initial New York suit alleges that after Bounce Exchange provided Yieldify execs with a product demonstration in 2013, they "copied hundreds of lines of code and generally replicated the overall structure, sequence, and organization of the Bounce Exchange Software."</p>
<p>Yieldify denies this, countering that "in March 2013, Mr. Jay Radia, Defendant's Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Meelan Radia, Defendant's Chief Technical Officer, met with representatives of Plaintiff. At that meeting, Plaintiff demonstrated certain public-facing aspects of its behavioral marketing automation software. Plaintiff did not reveal any confidential information to Defendant, and did not show Defendant any of its source code, either at this meeting or otherwise."</p>
<p>Yieldify changed its code after Bounce's initial complaint. But Yieldify says it made the change only "in the interest of resolving this matter quickly and without needless litigation."</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/56e04d00dd089555658b4868-1712-884/screen%20shot%202016-03-09%20at%2009.42.26.png" alt="bounce yieldify code" data-mce-source="UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK"></p>
<p>In the newer Texas suit, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yieldify-bounce-exchange-lawsuit-texas-alleged-patent-infringement-code-theft-customers-new-york-2016-4">filed on April 14, 2016</a>, Bounce Exchange alleges that Yieldify also infringed upon its patents, and duplicated its marketing material: "Not only did Yieldify copy from Bounce Exchange the functionality of the Bounce Exchange Software, Yieldify also copied the very marketing information that Bounce Exchange used to promote its software." (Yieldify also denies these allegations.)</p>
<p>Bounce Exchange is also going after Yieldify's customers. The Texas suit names three of the UK startups' customers as defendants in the suit — hotel company Omni Hotels Management, beauty products company Laura Mercier, and keyboard manufacturer Das Keyboard.</p>
<p>Other Yieldify customers have apparently also been hit with legal threats: "Bounce sent letters to hundreds of Yieldify’s customers, globally, threatening to take legal action against those customers if they did not agree to stop doing business with Yieldify within two weeks," Yieldify's court filings in the latest case allege.</p>
<p>The cases are ongoing, with the latest New York case — and the escalating war of words — adding a third strand to this acrimonious dispute. </p>
<p>In March, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-backed-yieldify-laid-off-10-percent-staff-march-lawsuit-revenues-2016-4">Yieldify laid over just over 10% of its employees</a> from across a range of departments. The company says that these layoffs are unconnected to the ongoing legal battles.</p>
<h2>Here's the court filing for the new case:</h2>
<p><div>
<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5buBct5cGDZd1VTX0F5aTUxNjA/preview" width="640" height="480"></iframe>
</div></p>
<h2 class="embed-spacer">And here's a copy of the patent that was submitted as evidence at the court:</h2>
<p class="embed-spacer"><div>
<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5buBct5cGDZV0FZeGxzcmV4aDA/preview" width="640" height="480"></iframe>
</div></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-yieldify-lawsuit-bounce-exchange-alleged-patent-infringement-tyrant-bully-diversion-2016-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/places-on-google-maps-you-cant-see-2016-11">7 places you can’t find on Google Maps</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-backed-yieldify-laid-off-10-percent-staff-march-lawsuit-revenues-2016-4Google-backed startup Yieldify laid off 10% of its employees in Marchhttp://www.businessinsider.com/google-backed-yieldify-laid-off-10-percent-staff-march-lawsuit-revenues-2016-4
Wed, 04 May 2016 06:16:00 -0400Rob Price
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/56c59d39dd08953b298b465b-1779-1334/5d3_4856 v.6.jpg" alt="Yieldify founder Jay, left, and Meelan Radia." data-mce-source="Yieldify" data-mce-caption="Yieldify founder Jay, left, and Meelan Radia." /></p><p>Google-backed London startup Yieldify laid off just over 10% of its workforce at the start of March.</p>
<p>In a statement, VP of marketing Shawn Cabral confirmed the layoffs, writing that the company "reorganised our current headcount and prioritised skill-sets to serve our valued customers better."</p>
<p>The layoffs come as Yieldify <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yieldify-bounce-exchange-lawsuit-texas-alleged-patent-infringement-code-theft-customers-new-york-2016-4">faces two lawsuits from a competitor </a>alleging that it copied its code and infringed on its patents. Yieldify says the layoffs and the legal battles are unconnected.</p>
<p>Founded four years ago, Yieldify builds e-commerce software that helps online retailers convince people to buy products online by tracking customer behaviour and providing prompts where necessary.</p>
<p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-europe-and-softbank-invest-115-million-in-yieldify-2015-6">In June 2015, it received $11.5 million (&pound;8 million) in venture capital investment</a>, with the round led by Google venture capital arm Google Ventures (now called GV after Google's restructuring into Alphabet) and Softbank.</p>
<p>"Over the past year Yieldify grew over 110% [in revenue] and still maintains a very strong growth momentum," says Yieldify's statement on the layoffs. "As a part of this growth we have hired an experienced senior management team from some of the leading companies in the MarTech [marketing tech] sector. This new team has put together a plan to be more efficient in order to take Yieldify to the next level and we have reorganised our current headcount and prioritised skill-sets to serve our valued customers better. As a result, regrettably, just over 10% of our employees were laid off on the 3rd of March 2016."</p>
<p>The company had 172 employees prior to the "restructuring."</p>
<p>The 110% growth in revenue is between January 2015 and December 2015, exec Shawn Cabral clarified. One person familiar with&nbsp;the matter says that Yieldify experienced a 10% decline in revenue prior to the layoffs, which Cabral confirmed. He said there was a "seasonal drop in revenue, but that is "normal for Q1," and said that the business is "on target for this year."</p>
<p>Business Insider understands that the layoffs came without any warning, with those affected let go that day. The layoffs were across multiple departments, including marketing, business development, account management, and development.</p>
<p>Yieldify was supportive to those laid off &mdash; offering help with interview skills and CV writing. Employees were given between two weeks and two months severance pay, depending on seniority, someone familiar with the matter said.</p>
<p>In 2015, New York-based rival Bounce Exchange filed a suit against Yieldify in a New York federal court, accusing it of copying its code and infringing its patents following a product demonstration, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yieldify-accused-of-copying-code-from-bounce-exchange-2016-3">in a case that first came to light earlier this year in a report from The Financial Times</a>. Yieldify denies the allegations.</p>
<p>In April 2016, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/yieldify-bounce-exchange-lawsuit-texas-alleged-patent-infringement-code-theft-customers-new-york-2016-4">Bounce filed a second case</a> &mdash; this one in a Texas federal court &mdash; repeating these allegations and adding some of Yieldify's customers as defendants. The customers (alongside Yieldify) are accused of "actively inducing others to infringe and/or contributing to the infringement [of Bounce Exchange's patents]."</p>
<h2>Here's the full statement on the layoffs from Yieldify:</h2>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Over the past year Yieldify grew over 110% and still maintains a very strong growth momentum. As a part of this growth we have hired an experienced senior management team from some of the leading companies in the MarTech sector. This new team has put together a plan to be more efficient in order to take Yieldify to the next level and we have reorganised our current headcount and prioritised skill-sets to serve our valued customers better. As a result, regrettably, just over 10% of our employees were laid off on the 3rd of March 2016.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Yieldify - as always - is committed to all our stakeholders and is confident that the changes made will enable us to service customers even better than before. It is a positive step for our business.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The Bounce Exchange claim has nothing to do with the changes made earlier in March 2016. Our policy is not to comment on pending lawsuits - except to say that the case has absolutely no merit whatsoever, and that our company has done nothing unlawful or in any way improper. We are fighting the lawsuit vigorously and are confident that we will be vindicated in the U.S. legal proceeding. It is important that our valued partners and clients know that Yieldify conducts itself at all times with the utmost integrity.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-backed-yieldify-laid-off-10-percent-staff-march-lawsuit-revenues-2016-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sleep-8-hour-cycle-ancestors-myth-2016-11">We sleep much differently than our ancestors — here's why</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-head-bill-maris-says-theres-insecurity-in-european-technology-2016-2The head of Google Ventures says there's 'insecurity' in European technology (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-head-bill-maris-says-theres-insecurity-in-european-technology-2016-2
Mon, 29 Feb 2016 05:36:35 -0500James Cook
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/566aab1bdd089556498b4639-2114-1586/gettyimages-472241090.jpg" alt="bill maris google ventures vc" data-mce-source="Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch" data-mce-caption="Managing Partner at Google Ventures, Bill Maris speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015 - Day 2 at The Manhattan Center on May 5, 2015 in New York City." /></p><p>Bill Maris, the man in charge of Google's venture capital&nbsp;wing Google Ventures, says there is "deep insecurity" in European technology that leads companies to think they're "not good enough."</p>
<p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/28/bill-maris-on-algorithms-zenefits-and-increasing-gvs-yearly-fund-to-500-million/">Maris spoke to TechCrunch's Silicon Valley editor&nbsp;Connie Loizos on Thursday night</a> and was asked about the decision to shut down Google Ventures' separate fund for investing in European technology companies.</p>
<p>Maris claimed the European fund wasn't shut down, it was just merged with the main fund. "We still have partners there," he&nbsp;said.</p>
<p>However, there are only two partners remaining at Google Ventures in Europe: Tom Hulme and&nbsp;Avid Larizadeh Duggan.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Peter Read left in July, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12">Google shut down its dedicated European VC fund</a>&nbsp;in December, and veteran Google employee Eze Vidra left on Christmas Day. The other person who launched the European fund in 2014,&nbsp;M.G. Siegler, has since returned to work for Google Ventures in the US.</p>
<p>Business Insider <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-uses-an-algorithm-to-help-it-make-investments-2015-7">reported in August there were disagreements within the Google Ventures team</a> in London. That may have been the cause of a year of silence in which<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/kobalt-announces-40-million-in-funding-led-by-google-ventures-2015-2"> the fund&nbsp;only invested in music publishing company Kobalt</a>. Other investors in London were left baffled by Google Ventures' inactivity, which may have been due to a reliance on its investment algorithm.</p>
<p>Google Ventures uses an algorithm that gathers information about a company and its industry in order to help its partners figure out whether to invest in it. Maris told&nbsp;Loizos that "we&rsquo;re looking at the market and at economic indicators and the funding environment and who has gotten funded and it&rsquo;s just one input into the decision-making process."</p>
<p>During the interview with Loizos, Maris said there's "insecurity" in European technology:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">There&rsquo;s some insecurity in Europe that I don&rsquo;t understand, about: We&rsquo;re not good enough. That&rsquo;s not the reality. There are great companies and entrepreneurs there and I&rsquo;m happy with what&rsquo;s happening.</p>
<p>There's no sign that Google Ventures is going to stop&nbsp;investing in European technology companies, either. Maris said that there have been eight investments in Europe, with six already announced and two more that will become public soon.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-head-bill-maris-says-theres-insecurity-in-european-technology-2016-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sleep-8-hour-cycle-ancestors-myth-2016-11">We sleep much differently than our ancestors — here's why</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/pindrop-phone-fraud-detection-tech-raises-75m-2016-1Pindrop can pick up when someone is trying to steal your identity over the phonehttp://www.businessinsider.com/pindrop-phone-fraud-detection-tech-raises-75m-2016-1
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 08:00:00 -0500Biz Carson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56a94a37c08a80ae2f8bc30d-800-600/vijay pindrop small.jpg" alt="vijay pindrop" data-mce-source="Pindrop" /></p><p></p>
<p>Vijay Balasubramaniyan was on vacation in India when he bought a new suit.&nbsp;</p>
<p>At 3 a.m., his phone rang. It was the bank, or so the person on the other end of the line told him. They wanted to confirm that Balasubramaniyan made the transaction...but first, he had to give&nbsp;them his account number and Social Security number.</p>
<p>He&nbsp;had no idea which transaction they were referring to &mdash; he'd been using the same credit card his whole trip. And the bank (or a random person calling him in the middle of the night) wouldn't tell him.</p>
<p>After 30 minutes of back and forth, Balasubramaniyan was able to get them to cancel the transaction. A few days later, he returned to get his suit, only&nbsp;to find out that&nbsp;the purchase had been reversed.</p>
<p>It was infuriating that his bank had no way to verify his identity other than asking him for&nbsp;sensitive information, and he had no idea of verifying the bank's identity either.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Balasubramaniyan spent six years working on his Ph.D.&nbsp;at the Georgia Institute of Technology and studying the traits of wanted versus unwanted phone calls. In 2011, he launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pindrop.com/">Pindrop Security</a>, as the culmination of his experience.</p>
<p>"What we're doing here is trying to identify the origins of a call purely from the audio you're receiving at your end,"&nbsp;<span>Balasubramaniyan told Business Insider</span></p>
<p>It's&nbsp;now used in three out of the top four banks to help detect fraud,&nbsp;and in a rare move, has received investments from both Google Ventures (now simply GV) and Google Capital.</p>
<p>The company plans to announce today a new $75 million Series C investment, led by Google Capital, bringing its total raised to more than $122 million.&nbsp;</p>
<h2><span><span>How phone fraud works</span></span></h2>
<p><span><span>R</span></span>obbing a bank used to mean walking in with a gun and walking out with a bag of money,&nbsp;Balasubramaniyan said.</p>
<p>But in 2016, the rules have changed.&nbsp;Now hackers target banks and other organizations&nbsp;to steal people's identities and money. And increasingly, they're doing it over the phone.</p>
<p>"These fraudsters are not only good at getting a lot of this information, but they're also masterful at socially engineering these conversations,"&nbsp;Balasubramaniyan said.</p>
<p>"One of my favorite calls is that the agent asks 'What is your mother's maiden name?' and the fraudster says 'Well my dad remarried twice, so can I have three guesses?' Even if your dad marries twice, you should only have one mom. It doesn't make sense. But, on the last guess, the fraudster guesses 'Smith' which is right, and so he gains access and wires $19,000 to a bank in Europe."</p>
<p>At that point, it's human versus human to get into the system, but Pindrop wants to change that.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/561e9f0c9dd7cc01308b66dd-1600-640/call center agents.jpg" alt="call center agents" data-mce-source="Wikimedia Commons" /></p>
<p>The company has spent the last five years building up a digital library of audio&nbsp;traits that can pinpoint where and what kind of call is coming through. If the service or the geography seems like an anomaly, or if it looks like the same kind of phone print that it's picked up over and over again, then Pindrop can flag the call as a possible risk.</p>
<p>For instance, banks might see a phone call come in with an Atlanta phone number, but Pindrop can recognize that it's actually a Skype call coming in from Nigeria because it's got "packet loss," so "pindrop"-sized bits of audio drop out. (That's where the name came from.)</p>
<p><span>With its new funding,&nbsp;Balasubramaniyan wants to expand overseas, where phone fraud is both more common and more costly. And he says that&nbsp;</span>Pindrop's next product will focus not on identifying the bad guys, but on verifying the good ones too.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/56a95e93c08a8034008bd27b-1911-956/screen shot 2014-08-14 at 3.31.18 pm.png" alt="Zooey Deschanel Siri iPhone" data-mce-source="YouTube" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOwN5kpgWGc" />The internet of things industry, including a future of connected watch, rings, and Amazon Echoes, are all increasingly reliant on voice. Giving anyone who can directly access the device license to operate it is only a growing threat.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"The biggest problem is, as these things are moving to voice, there's no one providing security, trust, and identity to it,"&nbsp;<span>Balasubramaniyan said.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fivestars-raises-50-million-2016-1" >Smart shopping startup FiveStars turned down VC money and almost died — now it's worth hundreds of millions</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pindrop-phone-fraud-detection-tech-raises-75m-2016-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/online-banking-security-mistakes-2015-12">The biggest security mistakes people make with online banking</a></p> http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12Why Google shut down its dedicated European VC fund (GOOG)http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12
Sun, 27 Dec 2015 20:11:00 -0500James Cook
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5665776fdd089529048b4694-2078-1558/15395375159_5c93cf29f4_o.jpg" alt="Google Ventures team in Europe" data-mce-source="Flickr/TechCrunch" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/"></p><p>Google Ventures has announced <a href="http://tech.eu/news/google-ventures-discontinues-european-fund/">it is shutting down its dedicated $125 million (£82.9 million) European venture capital fund</a> and rolling it into its global total, just over a year after it launched in Europe.</p>
<p>It's a quiet end to a project that launched with much hype, but the closure comes after disagreements between team members and the departure of a key partner.</p>
<p>Google Ventures will retain a presence in Europe, but any investments will now come from a global fund, not a dedicated European fund.</p>
<p>The dedicated investment fund only made a handful of small investments, with none taking place outside the UK.</p>
<p><a href="http://tech.eu/brief/google-ventures-resolution-games-funding/">Tech.eu points out that Google Ventures' recent investment</a> in Swedish virtual reality gaming company Resolution Games came from Google Ventures' head office in the US, not its dedicated European team.</p>
<p>The launch of a separate VC fund in Europe in 2014 was a huge endorsement of the European startup ecosystem. Sure, investors like Peter Thiel and Andreessen Horowitz had backed startups here, but this was a giant US company launching an all-star lineup of investors who promised to find the startups in Europe that had potential to change the world.</p>
<p>Here's the lineup of investors who launched the European fund:</p>
<ul>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Angel investor <strong>Tom Hulme</strong>, who founded OpenIDEO and was previously managing director of British sports car company Marcos.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Angel investor <strong>Peter Read</strong>, who previously invested in companies such as Citymapper, EyeEm, Farfetch, GetYourGuide, LoveFil, ROLI, Skype, and YPlan.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Eze Vidra</strong>, who was the head of Google Campus in London, which is home to lots of small startups and tech companies.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Avid Larizadeh Duggan</strong>, who was the cofounder of online fashion retailer Boticca.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>MG Siegler</strong>, the former TechCrunch writer who joined Google Ventures back in 2013 and moved to London to help the firm's European wing get started.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>MG Siegler <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/team-of-googles-new-european-vc-fund-2014-10">said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2014</a> that "Europe is the next logical step. This is Google Ventures as an entire team, we all just spent the past couple of weeks in the US getting to know the rest of the team."</p>
<p>However, only three of the original investors remain: Hulme, Vidra, and Larizadeh Duggan.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/559fa550dd08951e5a8b45d1-2668-2001/gettyimages-457533198.jpg" alt="Peter Read and MG Siegler at TechCrunch Disrupt." data-mce-source="Getty/Anthony Harvey" data-mce-caption="Peter Read and MG Siegler at TechCrunch Disrupt."><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-europe-general-partner-peter-read-just-left-the-firm-2015-7">Peter Read left Google Ventures in July</a> and gave no reason for his departure. Google Ventures only confirmed that Read had left the team and never provided a statement or any further details.</p>
<p>And MG Siegler has fulfilled his duty in setting up Google Ventures in Europe and has now returned to San Francisco. That leaves a skeleton team in London.</p>
<p>Hulme, however, defended the decision for Google to end its European fund, and tweeted that it will give the team more money to invest in Europe.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5665afeddd089503278b4647-800-822/screen%20shot%202015-12-07%20at%2015.37.54.png" alt="Google Ventures partner Tom Hulme tweets" data-mce-source="Twitter/thulme" data-link="https://twitter.com/thulme"></p>
<p>Similarly, Siegler tweeted that the news was actually a positive development for Google Ventures:</p>
<p><div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>
Unclear how a huge positive turned negative. This is good news for GV, for Europe, maybe even the world! 🌎🌍🌏 <a href="https://t.co/LN4KdqMYSa">https://t.co/LN4KdqMYSa</a> </p>— M.G. Siegler (@mgsiegler) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/673896650436296704">December 7, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Business Insider <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-uses-an-algorithm-to-help-it-make-investments-2015-7">reported in August that there were disagreements within the Google Ventures team</a> in London. That may have been the cause of a year of silence in which<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/kobalt-announces-40-million-in-funding-led-by-google-ventures-2015-2"> the fund only invested in music publishing company Kobalt</a>. Other investors in London were left baffled by Google Ventures' inactivity.</p>
<p>Another problem for Google Ventures in London has been a reliance on the Google investment algorithm that uses a computer system to indicate to partners whether they should invest in a company or not. Some investors told Business Insider that Google Ventures has encouraged its European partners to rely heavily on the algorithm, and that may have caused the team to invest in such a small number of startups.</p>
<p>Here's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/technology/google-spending-millions-to-find-the-next-google.html">how The New York Times described the Google Ventures algorithm in 2011</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">To make its picks, the company has built computer algorithms using data from past venture investments and academic literature. For example, for individual companies, Google enters data about how long the founders worked on start-ups before raising money and whether the founders successfully started companies in the past.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">It runs similar information about potential investments through the algorithms to get a red, yellow or green light.</p>
<p>Google Ventures' European team was always going to be an experiment. $125 million was a relatively small amount in the grand scheme of things. Competing firms like Index Ventures have many times that amount (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-european-venture-capital-funds-2015-7?r=UK&amp;IR=T">$706 million in total</a>) to spend, and so Google's European team was left to invest in early stage companies. Some European investors expressed disbelief in the $125 million figure, and they had assumed that it was a yearly figure.</p>
<p>Bill Maris, Google Ventures CEO, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2015/12/06/google-ventures-dials-down-seed-deals-urges-mature-startups-to-go-public/">told The Wall Street Journal</a> that Google Ventures has "moved away from seed-stage investing." It looks like Google Ventures is now moving onto larger investments and is looking more closely at <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/where-googles-venture-arm-will-invest-in-2016-2015-12">science and medical companies</a>, and so the separate European fund no longer makes sense. It's a quiet end to a much-hyped venture that seemed in 2014 to be a big endorsement of European startups.</p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-self-driving-car-problem-human-drivers-safety-2015-11">Google's self-driving car has a huge problem</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/eze-vidra-leaves-google-ventures-2015-12Google Ventures has lost another partner from its team in Europe (GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/eze-vidra-leaves-google-ventures-2015-12
Fri, 25 Dec 2015 16:00:20 -0500Robin Wauters
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5665776fdd089529048b4694-2078-1558/15395375159_5c93cf29f4_o.jpg" alt="Google Ventures team in Europe" data-mce-source="Flickr/TechCrunch" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/" /></p><p>Mere weeks after Google <a href="http://tech.eu/news/google-ventures-discontinues-european-fund/">discontinued its dedicated investment arm</a> in and for Europe, <a href="https://twitter.com/ediggs" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://twitter.com/ediggs', 'Eze Vidra');">Eze Vidra</a> has&nbsp;<a href="https://medium.com/@ediggs/farewell-google-and-cheers-to-a-new-adventure-5cd24488bccb#.i63fycpl8" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://medium.com/@ediggs/farewell-google-and-cheers-to-a-new-adventure-5cd24488bccb#.i63fycpl8', 'quit');">quit</a> his position as investment partner in <a href="http://www.gv.com/" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http://www.gv.com/', 'Google Ventures');">Google Ventures</a> - and the company altogether.</p>
<p>Vidra, who launched Google Shopping in Spain and other commerce products in a number of European markets, and established the successful (and first) <a href="https://www.campus.co/london/en" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://www.campus.co/london/en', 'Google Campus');">Google Campus</a> in London during the 5.5 years he worked at Google, is leaving at the end of this year.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://medium.com/@ediggs/farewell-google-and-cheers-to-a-new-adventure-5cd24488bccb#.i63fycpl8" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://medium.com/@ediggs/farewell-google-and-cheers-to-a-new-adventure-5cd24488bccb#.i63fycpl8', 'farewell blog post');">farewell blog post</a> published on Christmas Day, Vidra did not reveal anything about what he's up to next, vaguely saying he will 'continue to work with startups'. From the sound of it, figuratively speaking, it looks like he will be moving out of London with his family shortly.</p>
<p>Vidra helped set up Google Ventures (now simply 'GV') in Europe and led its <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/27/google-ventures-60m-funding-music-kobalt" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/27/google-ventures-60m-funding-music-kobalt', '$60 million investment');">$60 million investment</a> in music publishing and rights firm Kobalt. According to <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/82d7fb56-9f40-11e5-8613-08e211ea5317.html#axzz3tox7ZxRc" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/82d7fb56-9f40-11e5-8613-08e211ea5317.html#axzz3tox7ZxRc', 'a recent report in the FT');">a recent report in the FT</a> - and by <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-uses-an-algorithm-to-help-it-make-investments-2015-7" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-uses-an-algorithm-to-help-it-make-investments-2015-7', 'Business Insider');">Business Insider</a>&nbsp;earlier this year - there was a lot of tension and frustration in the 'Google Ventures Europe' team about the inner workings of the corporate venture capital firm.</p>
<p>In fact, Eze Vidra is the second from an initial four investment partners Google Ventures had in Europe to depart; last Summer, another partner - Peter Read - <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/10/read-it-here-first/" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/10/read-it-here-first/', 'walked away');">walked away</a> without explaining why.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Vidra's profile on the GV website has already been <a href="http://www.gv.com/team/eze-vidra/" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http://www.gv.com/team/eze-vidra/', 'erased');">erased</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/eze-vidra-leaves-google-ventures-2015-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/preauricular-sinus-small-hole-above-ear-2016-11">Here's why some people have a tiny hole above their ears</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-with-companies-close-to-ipo-2015-12These VCs have the most companies on the path to going publichttp://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-with-companies-close-to-ipo-2015-12
Thu, 17 Dec 2015 09:00:00 -0500Biz Carson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/564b38f72491f90d248b59f0-1824-1368/22567758940_266d5cf2ef_k.jpg" alt="Marc Andreessen" data-mce-source="Stuart Isett/Fortune Global Forum" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortuneglobalforum/22567758940/" /></p><p>Venture capital database CB Insights released its rankings of the top 20 investors in the IPO pipeline &mdash; and the top five&nbsp;are continuing their reign over Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>CB Insights narrowed down the private venture and equity-backed companies in the technology landscape to a list of 531 companies, "the cream of the technology crop," as CEO Anand Sanwal puts it.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The 531 companies are likely to go on to become the S&amp;P 500 companies of tomorrow, although they don't necessarily have to IPO in the next year to be included.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Both Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz lead the pack for the most investments in the 2016 tech "IPO pipeline" followed by Kleiner Perkins, Accel, and New Enterprise Associates.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Surprisingly, the rest of the list is now a large mix between the traditional venture capital firms and new entrants like the corporate backed funds. Google Ventures, Intel Capital, and Salesforce Ventures made the top 20. Late-stage investors like Goldman Sachs and Fidelity Investments also have big stakes in companies that are inching close to going public.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Here's the full list of the top 20 investors, <a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research-tech-ipo-report-2016">as ranked by CB Insights</a>,. You can read the full report on the 2016 Tech IPO Pipeline&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbinsights.com/research-tech-ipo-report-2016">here.</a></p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5671ffac72f2c118008b646b-974-538/screen shot 2015-12-16 at 4.19.31 pm.png" alt="2016 tech IPO pipeline" data-mce-source="CB Insights" data-link="https://www.cbinsights.com/research-tech-ipo-report-2016" /></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/startups-that-doubled-their-value-in-2015-2015-12" >These billion-dollar startups more than doubled their value in 2015</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vcs-with-companies-close-to-ipo-2015-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/launching-startup-changed-drastically-stewart-butterfield-slack-flickr-2015-6">Why new companies have it way easier now than a decade ago</a></p> http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12Google Ventures' dedicated European fund is no more (GOOG)http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12
Sun, 13 Dec 2015 05:23:00 -0500James Cook
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5665776fdd089529048b4694-2078-1558/15395375159_5c93cf29f4_o.jpg" alt="Google Ventures team in Europe" data-mce-source="Flickr/TechCrunch" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/"></p><p>Google Ventures has announced <a href="http://tech.eu/news/google-ventures-discontinues-european-fund/">it is shutting down its dedicated $125 million (£82.9 million) European venture capital fund</a> and rolling it into its global total, just over a year after it launched in Europe.</p>
<p>It's a quiet end to a project that launched with much hype, but the closure comes after disagreements between team members and the departure of a key partner.</p>
<p>Google Ventures will retain a presence in Europe, but any investments will now come from a global fund, not a dedicated European fund.</p>
<p>The dedicated investment fund only made a handful of small investments, with none taking place outside the UK.</p>
<p><a href="http://tech.eu/brief/google-ventures-resolution-games-funding/">Tech.eu points out that Google Ventures' recent investment</a> in Swedish virtual reality gaming company Resolution Games came from Google Ventures' head office in the US, not its dedicated European team.</p>
<p>The launch of a separate VC fund in Europe in 2014 was a huge endorsement of the European startup ecosystem. Sure, investors like Peter Thiel and Andreessen Horowitz had backed startups here, but this was a giant US company launching an all-star lineup of investors who promised to find the startups in Europe that had potential to change the world.</p>
<p>Here's the lineup of investors who launched the European fund:</p>
<ul>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Angel investor <strong>Tom Hulme</strong>, who founded OpenIDEO and was previously managing director of British sports car company Marcos.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Angel investor <strong>Peter Read</strong>, who previously invested in companies such as Citymapper, EyeEm, Farfetch, GetYourGuide, LoveFil, ROLI, Skype, and YPlan.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Eze Vidra</strong>, who was the head of Google Campus in London, which is home to lots of small startups and tech companies.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Avid Larizadeh Duggan</strong>, who was the cofounder of online fashion retailer Boticca.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>MG Siegler</strong>, the former TechCrunch writer who joined Google Ventures back in 2013 and moved to London to help the firm's European wing get started.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>MG Siegler <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/team-of-googles-new-european-vc-fund-2014-10">said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2014</a> that "Europe is the next logical step. This is Google Ventures as an entire team, we all just spent the past couple of weeks in the US getting to know the rest of the team."</p>
<p>However, only three of the original investors remain: Hulme, Vidra, and Larizadeh Duggan.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/559fa550dd08951e5a8b45d1-2668-2001/gettyimages-457533198.jpg" alt="Peter Read and MG Siegler at TechCrunch Disrupt." data-mce-source="Getty/Anthony Harvey" data-mce-caption="Peter Read and MG Siegler at TechCrunch Disrupt."><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-europe-general-partner-peter-read-just-left-the-firm-2015-7">Peter Read left Google Ventures in July</a> and gave no reason for his departure. Google Ventures only confirmed that Read had left the team and never provided a statement or any further details.</p>
<p>And MG Siegler has fulfilled his duty in setting up Google Ventures in Europe and has now returned to San Francisco. That leaves a skeleton team in London.</p>
<p>Hulme, however, defended the decision for Google to end its European fund, and tweeted that it will give the team more money to invest in Europe.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5665afeddd089503278b4647-800-822/screen%20shot%202015-12-07%20at%2015.37.54.png" alt="Google Ventures partner Tom Hulme tweets" data-mce-source="Twitter/thulme" data-link="https://twitter.com/thulme"></p>
<p>Similarly, Siegler tweeted that the news was actually a positive development for Google Ventures:</p>
<p><div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>
Unclear how a huge positive turned negative. This is good news for GV, for Europe, maybe even the world! 🌎🌍🌏 <a href="https://t.co/LN4KdqMYSa">https://t.co/LN4KdqMYSa</a> </p>— M.G. Siegler (@mgsiegler) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/673896650436296704">December 7, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Business Insider <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-uses-an-algorithm-to-help-it-make-investments-2015-7">reported in August that there were disagreements within the Google Ventures team</a> in London. That may have been the cause of a year of silence in which<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/kobalt-announces-40-million-in-funding-led-by-google-ventures-2015-2"> the fund only invested in music publishing company Kobalt</a>. Other investors in London were left baffled by Google Ventures' inactivity.</p>
<p>Another problem for Google Ventures in London has been a reliance on the Google investment algorithm that uses a computer system to indicate to partners whether they should invest in a company or not. Some investors told Business Insider that Google Ventures has encouraged its European partners to rely heavily on the algorithm, and that may have caused the team to invest in such a small number of startups.</p>
<p>Here's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/technology/google-spending-millions-to-find-the-next-google.html">how The New York Times described the Google Ventures algorithm in 2011</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">To make its picks, the company has built computer algorithms using data from past venture investments and academic literature. For example, for individual companies, Google enters data about how long the founders worked on start-ups before raising money and whether the founders successfully started companies in the past.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">It runs similar information about potential investments through the algorithms to get a red, yellow or green light.</p>
<p>Google Ventures' European team was always going to be an experiment. $125 million was a relatively small amount in the grand scheme of things. Competing firms like Index Ventures have many times that amount (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-european-venture-capital-funds-2015-7?r=UK&amp;IR=T">$706 million in total</a>) to spend, and so Google's European team was left to invest in early stage companies. Some European investors expressed disbelief in the $125 million figure, and they had assumed that it was a yearly figure.</p>
<p>Bill Maris, Google Ventures CEO, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2015/12/06/google-ventures-dials-down-seed-deals-urges-mature-startups-to-go-public/">told The Wall Street Journal</a> that Google Ventures has "moved away from seed-stage investing." It looks like Google Ventures is now moving onto larger investments and is looking more closely at <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/where-googles-venture-arm-will-invest-in-2016-2015-12">science and medical companies</a>, and so the separate European fund no longer makes sense. It's a quiet end to a much-hyped venture that seemed in 2014 to be a big endorsement of European startups.</p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-self-driving-car-problem-human-drivers-safety-2015-11">Google's self-driving car has a huge problem</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-europe-closed-after-stalled-deals-report-bill-maris-2015-12Google Ventures reportedly closed its European fund after multiple stalled deals (GOOG, GOOGL)http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-europe-closed-after-stalled-deals-report-bill-maris-2015-12
Fri, 11 Dec 2015 05:52:44 -0500Rob Price
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/566aab1bdd089556498b4639-2114-1586/gettyimages-472241090.jpg" alt="bill maris google ventures vc" data-mce-source="Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch" data-mce-caption="Managing Partner at Google Ventures, Bill Maris speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015 - Day 2 at The Manhattan Center on May 5, 2015 in New York City." /></p><p>Earlier this week, Google Ventures announced it was <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12">closing down its dedicated European fund</a>. It had been assigned $125 million to invest, but only lasted a year before Google HQ pulled the plug, rolling it into the global fund &mdash; recently rebranded and renamed GV.</p>
<p>Tom Hulme, one of the partners at Google Ventures Europe, <a href="https://twitter.com/thulme">said on Twitter that the decision</a> "gives us more flexibility and dollars to invest in the best founders and companies, regardless of where they are based."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82d7fb56-9f40-11e5-8613-08e211ea5317.html#axzz3tvSMD78T">A new report in the Financial Times</a> sheds more light on events behind the scenes that caused the European fund to close. It alleges hold-ups from California were to blame.</p>
<p>Bill Maris, who heads up GV globally, has the final say on all investments made by the funds. A source "close to the London partners" of GV told the FT that "six to nine months in, the team got frustrated ... they were seeing a lot of companies and ended up taking a lot of people quite close to the finish line, but ultimately they couldn't get over it."</p>
<p>So the partners were active, but couldn't get Maris to agree to the companies they found. Business Insider has reached out to Google about the report, and will update this story when the company&nbsp;responds.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Of the five partners who launched the European arm, only three remain on the continent. MG Siegler went back to the States, and Peter Read left GV altogether.</p>
<p>The investment firm uses an algorithm to help decide what to invest in, and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-is-shutting-down-its-dedicated-european-fund-2015-12">sources have told Business Insider that partners were told to rely heavily on it.</a></p>
<p>In 14 months, the European firm made six investments, with another two on the way, according to the FT.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-ventures-europe-closed-after-stalled-deals-report-bill-maris-2015-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hidden-iphone-settings-and-features-2016-11">3 hidden iPhone features only power users know about</a></p>